Ranting and Complaints of Life in Taiwan

Photographer’s Dilemma

I don’t think there’s anything hard about photography when I bought my first DSLR camera in 2008. Well, I mean it might take while to get the technical terms right (things like f-stop, exposure, and ISO), but the rest is pretty much point and shoot – maybe a bit more on composition, though I won’t classify that as a difficulty.

Boy, was I wrong.

A little trip down to Wanli Township and Yilan County awaken me to the fact that being a photographer and hunting after a good landscape shot may be very demanding.

At first, it was no more than a planned 3-day camping trip to central Taiwan, but due to shift problems, we were forced to cancel the original plan.

So the people who weren’t aware of the last-minute change arrived at the meeting point at 9 p.m. at night and were told that we weren’t going. Fortunately, one of the members who said might as well turn the trip to a short photography trip to nearby places (I guess he was taking pity for us newbie photographers who are desperate for some good shots). Of course, being the anxious soul I am, I quickly voted in favor of the suggestion.

At the end, it turned out that 3 of us (2 co-workers and I) would take one car, and the guide was going to pick up his friends – all experienced photographers.

So we met up at a rendezvous point downtown and went through the plan for the night. The guide’s friends were old fellows; one of them was a 70-year old gentleman who brought his film camera (in fact, both of them were using film cameras). So we decided to set off to Wanli Township to take a photo of ‘Fist Rock’ – a supposedly top choice location in Northern Taiwan.

About ME – the geeky author of this blog

There’s not much to know about this subject, except that I’m keeping this blog as a way of forcing myself to write in a non work-related environment and to rant for fun. It’s also a great way for me to keep in contact with my friends, to let them know what’s going on at this puny island on this side of the Pacific Ocean.